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Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
#1
Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
This is the intro page to the subject with dozens of urls to supporting data and all the ancient texts that are relevant to the discussion. I welcome physical evidence (that which can be given an exhibit number in a court of law) which is contrary to anything I have written here.

http://www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexa...index.html

Archaeology is done with neither the bible nor Herzl as reference.

The Letter of Aristeas is a forgery therefore the Septuagint is the original

Introduction
As we know for a fact that the Old Testament could not possibly have been written in bibleland by the people living in bibleland it is of interest to examine where it was created and by whom.

There is a fundamental difference between belief and knowledge. People believe the darnedest things. Belief is a matter of choice. Knowledge is based upon what is experienced through the senses.

Disagreements with this based upon sophistry are not of interest. Abstraction from immediate, primary experience does not change the source of knowledge.

Hundreds of millions of people believe many things about the Old Testament. But when it comes to knowledge the situation is much different.

No one knows why the books of the Old Testament were written.
No one knows who wrote them.
No one knows when they were written.
No one knows the original language in which they were written.
No one knows when the idea they were religious works started.
No one knows when they became a component of a religion.
No one knows why any particular selection of books was made.

I will endeavor to address these issues and more in what follows. However there is a short summary for the impatient.

The shortest form is, we know where the books could not have been written and we know the dates they could be no older than. These exclude bibleland and any date prior to the 3rd c. BC. Those two facts preclude all current religious beliefs about its origin.

Before you go further keep in mind what I say cannot possibly be true because it contradicts religious and political beliefs. For believers that means the most superficial and known false single data proves what I say is wrong. Further it justifies the most scurrilous personal attacks the filthiest believing minds can invent.

The religion of the priests was not the religion of the people
The Old Testament itself screams loudly that the Judeans were polytheists. The priests of the Yahweh cult are constantly railing against the polytheism of the people. If we had records of the other priests we would expect them to issuing the same condemnations of worshiping but would include the evil Yahweh. It is a strange conceit to assume the political position of the Yahweh priests seeking dominance was the only one. It is even stranger to think one cult was superior to the people without also believing in a divinely inspired religion. The people rule; the priests are servants.

Narrating the Origin of the Bible

Explanatory links used in the above

The Septuagint is the original Old Testament
Generic religion
Proselytizing the old-fashioned way
Ethnos to religion complications
Ancient v Modern History
Anachronisms are not permitted
Questions of the Rhetorical Kind
Many different realities
If the Bible Stories were True
What is not in the Bible
The Myth of the Golden Age
Why a Greek Tanakh?
Some definitions
Where do religious traditions come from?
Disagreements Among Frenemies
All Things Imaginary
The main points
The Galilean Father Paradigm
For the Jews reading this
Miscellaneous observations
Understanding the New Testament
Josephus the only Historian of Judea
Bibleland
The Evidence is against Biblical Israel
It's so easy to hate the Jews
The Maccabean proxy war
Serapis, the invented god
Inventing Yahweh
The Appearance of Jews in History
The Maccabean Revolt was really a Greek proxy war
The Origin of Monotheism
The Cohenim Gene Origin
The 10th Plague of Exodus
What if the Bible merely exaggerates Israel?
The invented history of bibleland
Why was the Septuagint created?
Argumentum ad Hollywoodum
Who was Strato and why did he have so many towers?
Belief and Knowledge
Oral History is a Myth
Alexandria
The Naked Septuagint
The Letter of Aristeas
How many Judeans were there in the Roman Empire?
Musings
The False Retreat of Believers
All things imaginary
How the bible stories were seen
Where do religious traditions come from?
Archaeological finds: Egypt and Israel compared
Bibleland, the most dug place in the world
The Myth of captivity in Babylon
Recognizable Judaism
We cannot think like the ancients
The Biblelanders were polytheists
Meet Yahweh
Introducing Ashara, the Goddess of Judea
Meet the Eve from east of Eden
What is Judaism?
What you see is what you want to see
The Considerata
The Newer New Covenant

Reference material

I am here trying to include all relevant material that is not readily accessible. I want no one to take my word for what I say. Read the material. Decide for yourself. It is the only freedom you truly have.

The complete text of Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book I
Complete text of the Letter of Aristeas
Against Apion zipfile
Antiquities of the Jews zipfile
Wars of the Jews zipfile
A less organized, earlier and more error prone version of this web page in PDF form
Some texts on the Septuagint found on the web
Life of Flavius Josephus by Himself An Extract out of Josephus's Discourse to The Greeks Concerning Hades
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#2
RE: Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
Yeah...way ahead of you.

One needs to understand the political situation in Judaea c 165 BC. The Seleucids were the nominal rulers having evicted the Ptolemaic Greeks a century or so earlier. The Seleucids, however, had their asses kicked by the Romans at Magnesia in 190. Antiochus the Great died while trying to collect the indemnity that the Romans demanded in exchange for peace which led to 25 years of internecine strife, revolts and assassinations among various claimants to the throne. Meanwhile, the Seleucid empire continued to vanish piece-by-piece.

So, in that atmosphere, one should not be surprised that a group of nobles took the opportunity also to rebel against Seleucid control and seek independence. All of this horseshit about god could well have been written into the story later on by priests seeking to establish their own position in the new kingdom. Certainly, the establishment of the Hasmonean monarchy represents the only time in the entire first millenium when there was actually an admittedly minor regional power in Judaea which could make a pretension to expansionist policy.

This covers a very short period of time, perhaps 60 years before the Hasmoneans, like the Seleucids earlier, dissolved into a bickering bloody clan which ended up being swept aside when Pompeius Magnus came rolling through the region.
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#3
RE: Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
Hi Matt Giwer

I remember you from my days posting on soc.history.what-if, which was like back in the Cretaceous era.
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#4
RE: Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
(January 8, 2013 at 1:50 am)Justtristo Wrote: Hi Matt Giwer

I remember you from my days posting on soc.history.what-if, which was like back in the Cretaceous era.

Yo! whoever you are. I'm finally getting around to putting the reasons behind the conclusion in writing. Only took 15 years for the conclusion. Two years on the reasons so far. What's the rush?
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#5
RE: Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
(January 7, 2013 at 10:18 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Yeah...way ahead of you.

One needs to understand the political situation in Judaea c 165 BC. The Seleucids were the nominal rulers having evicted the Ptolemaic Greeks a century or so earlier. The Seleucids, however, had their asses kicked by the Romans at Magnesia in 190. Antiochus the Great died while trying to collect the indemnity that the Romans demanded in exchange for peace which led to 25 years of internecine strife, revolts and assassinations among various claimants to the throne. Meanwhile, the Seleucid empire continued to vanish piece-by-piece.

So, in that atmosphere, one should not be surprised that a group of nobles took the opportunity also to rebel against Seleucid control and seek independence. All of this horseshit about god could well have been written into the story later on by priests seeking to establish their own position in the new kingdom. Certainly, the establishment of the Hasmonean monarchy represents the only time in the entire first millenium when there was actually an admittedly minor regional power in Judaea which could make a pretension to expansionist policy.

This covers a very short period of time, perhaps 60 years before the Hasmoneans, like the Seleucids earlier, dissolved into a bickering bloody clan which ended up being swept aside when Pompeius Magnus came rolling through the region.

Just before I came to the conclusion in the subject I had not gotten into Josephus but was publicly betting the Maccabes would be a border war between the Greeks sort of like Vietnam. The first sentence of Wars of the Jews said exactly that. It was all downhill.

What is surprising is the modern narrative of the Maccabes is so contrary to the only known history of the events. The ancestors of New Testament Galileans were forced to convert to Judaism. Whether or not there was a Jesus that he is a Galilean and his career mostly in Galilee along with the forced conversion puts an entirely different view on his likely ancestral religion teachings and the animosity between the conquering priests of Judea and the conquered Galileans. His hatred of Jews, aka Judeans, was a natural. Presuming Jesus did not exist when Rome smashed Judea, the Jews, twice the Galileans ruled from Syria had a free hand in spreading their version of the Yahweh cult without hindrance.
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#6
RE: Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
Welcome

Now Mr Giwer, how about you don't link to your homepage with your first post, and worse, cut and paste its entire contents here? Do you expect us to go and read all that horseshit? How about you go here:

http://blog.aractus.com/

And read all the pages, fuck I'll cut and paste it here for you?

Ah no, I don't think so.

"The Septuagint is the original Old Testament" REALLY??

ROFLOL

I find it comical that anyone, except perhaps eastern orthodox loonies, would believe such bullshit. There isn't even one single complete LXX manuscript you douchebag, which by the way you can learn here:

http://blog.aractus.com/search-for-the-septuagint/

"The Septuagint" is nothing more than the fifth column of the Hexapla, thus you cannot date it earlier than 245 AD HA! Oh and since the book of Daniel is only found in Codex Chisianus (although I should point out another copy has supposedly been found that I don't know anything about), that means you don't have a complete copy older than the 9th century of it.

Let me guess "waawaawaawaa"?

Go find some real evidence, and peddle this easily refutable bullshit elsewhere!
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#7
RE: Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
(January 8, 2013 at 6:41 am)Aractus Wrote: Welcome

Now Mr Giwer, how about you don't link to your homepage with your first post, and worse, cut and paste its entire contents here?

I noticed no rule against it. It is not my home page but merely a small topic of my website. Please do not think my interests are so limited. Should go to the original the page I posted contains a few dozen links which are the substance of the discussion.

Quote:Do you expect us to go and read all that horseshit?

I frankly do not care what you do. I simply put up the summary and left the rest to those interested.

Quote:How about you go here:

http://blog.aractus.com/

And read all the pages, fuck I'll cut and paste it here for you?

Ah no, I don't think so.

What you do is your business. I do not see why you are coming on as some loud mouth high school bully nor why you have me confused with someone who gives a damn about your opinion, limited that it is.

Quote:"The Septuagint is the original Old Testament" REALLY??

ROFLOL

To repeat I invite any and all physical evidence to the contrary. I presume your response means you have none. (Confounding first post here with first post ever is a mistake.)

Quote:I find it comical that anyone, except perhaps eastern orthodox loonies, would believe such bullshit. There isn't even one single complete LXX manuscript you douchebag,

Love you too. Frankly I see no justification for such juvenalia. Perhaps you are just pissed at your first day back in school.

Quote:which by the way you can learn here:

http://blog.aractus.com/search-for-the-septuagint/

"The Septuagint" is nothing more than the fifth column of the Hexapla, thus you cannot date it earlier than 245 AD HA! Oh and since the book of Daniel is only found in Codex Chisianus (although I should point out another copy has supposedly been found that I don't know anything about), that means you don't have a complete copy older than the 9th century of it.

Let me guess "waawaawaawaa"?

As educated people know, the oldest copy or oldest reference to the material is used to date ancient works. It is not necessary to have a copy to date material. Of course the exact content is open to question. Clearly the idea of canonical did not exist prior to the 3rd c. AD. For example Josephus says Jews have only 22 sacred books and unfortunately does not name them.

As to earliest reference to the Septuagint Josephus towards the end of the 1st c. AD quotes from the forgery called the Letter of Aristeas, which dates to at least the early 1st c. AD. Thus the Septuagint clearly existed as this forgery was created to give it authenticity. That knocks more than two centuries off of your 245 AD Hexapla claim which is not debatable. There is less clear evidence which is debatable dating the letter and therefore the substance of the letter to the mid-late 2nd c. BC. We can go into that if you like but I doubt you will.

There is no evidence the Septuagint was ever intended to be a complete collection of books any more than the New Testament was intended as a single collection. There are a lot of books that didn't make the official cut like Wisdom of Solomon and that one with the Watchers whose name escapes me. Dozens of gospels and letters didn't make the NT final cut either. Where Daniel is found is immaterial as is the Cinderella story of Ester.

Quote:Go find some real evidence, and peddle this easily refutable bullshit elsewhere!

As you have refuted nothing but rather given me the opportunity to further support my position, Thank you. OTOH you have produced no physical evidence of there having been a Hebrew version older than the Septuagint. That is what I said.

Other points are there is no evidence of a literate culture in bibleland until the 2nd c. BC after exposure to the Greeks. That puts an age limit on just how old the "hebrew" could be. As the contents of all the books are fiction and fantasy there is no basis for internal "dating" of the context. Except for Daniel which does date to the 2nd c. BC when the prophesies change from all correct to all wrong.

There is no evidence Hebrew was ever a spoken language. Some of the DSS and the later Mishna plus two letters found along with the DSS are the only examples of it. The pre-Greek inscriptions found in bibleland are clearly Phoenician and the Roman era Aramaic and Greek. That believers like to call the Phoenician proto-Hebrew is amusing at best.

The DSS is an abbreviated version of the Septuagint and the Masoretic an abbreviated version of the DSS. There is nothing in the Masoretic that is not in the DSS and nothing in the DSS that is not in the Septuagint. Clearly were the DSS the original this cannot be explained. That all points to the Septuagint being the original and clearly the oldest. It leaves Hebrew as a liturgical language or a pidgin of Greek and Aramaic.

The wag can simply say if the Septuagint were the translation there would be no need for a forgery to "authenticate" it.
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#8
RE: Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
(January 8, 2013 at 8:23 am)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: As educated people know, the oldest copy or oldest reference to the material is used to date ancient works. It is not necessary to have a copy to date material. Of course the exact content is open to question. Clearly the idea of canonical did not exist prior to the 3rd c. AD. For example Josephus says Jews have only 22 sacred books and unfortunately does not name them.
They STILL have the 22 "books" (ie scrolls). How do you not comprehend this? Do you intentionally ignore the lunacy of your arguments. I can prove it to you with a single verse of the Bible:
  • Luke 24:44: Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the [1] Law of Moses and the [2] Prophets and the [3] Psalms must be fulfilled.”

Find me a Septuigant manuscript that's arranged this way. You can't, because none of them are. Only the hebrew manuscripts are arranged Law - Prophets - Writings/Psalms. All the Septuigant manuscripts are arranged: Pentateuch, Historical Books, Wisdom Books, Prophets.
Quote:It is not necessary to have a copy to date material. Of course the exact content is open to question. Clearly the idea of canonical did not exist prior to the 3rd c. AD.
1. You clearly don't extend the same philosophy to the Masoretic Text. 2. Try again. You don't know about the Jamnia Council in 90AD held by the Jews. The discussion was limited to certain books, but the canon of 22 scrolls was upheld unchanged.
Quote:As to earliest reference to the Septuagint Josephus towards the end of the 1st c. AD quotes from the forgery called the Letter of Aristeas, which dates to at least the early 1st c. AD. Thus the Septuagint clearly existed as this forgery was created to give it authenticity. That knocks more than two centuries off of your 245 AD Hexapla claim which is not debatable. There is less clear evidence which is debatable dating the letter and therefore the substance of the letter to the mid-late 2nd c. BC. We can go into that if you like but I doubt you will.
Wrong. Totally. You keep saying "the Septuagint". All the Letter of Aristeas "attests" to is a translation of the Torah, that's all. You have no evidence, at all, that that translation is the same one as found in the Hexapla which is where we get "the Septuagint" that we know. The oldest copies we have are 4th century AD, and all have "Theodatian version" books in them, none are complete. All the other Greek translations in the Hexapla are believed to come from the mid-late 2nd century AD (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion). Your claim is that the fifth column comes from 3rd/2d century BC, yet you can't establish any evidence for this, you don't know where it came from, because by the time Origen gets his hands on it, in the 3rd century there are now multiple Greek versions about. What we do know is that this version got "special treatment" and Origen modified it substantially. This fully explains the parallelism with the NT on quoted verses without the need for it to exist in or before the 1st century AD. Origen is single-handedly responsible for making this version, instead of the other 3, popular. If he had preferred the 4th column and given that special treatment, then the "Symmachus" version would be the one copied and preserved in other codices like Vaticanus.
Quote: Where Daniel is found is immaterial as is the Cinderella story of Ester.
Your theory also totally fails to explain why Daniel goes from Aramaic to Hebrew and back to Aramaic. Rolleyes
Quote:There is no evidence Hebrew was ever a spoken language.
Holy fuck you're dumb. How about the Masoretic vowel points? How about extensive Greek transliteration? How about the Aramaic language??
Quote:The wag can simply say if the Septuagint were the translation there would be no need for a forgery to "authenticate" it.
If you really believe the bullshit you're telling me (and I smell a Poe) then explain Isaiah 7:14 to me.

Now go and practise falling down.
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#9
RE: Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
Quote: The ancestors of New Testament Galileans were forced to convert to Judaism.

Yes. And I was amazed to find out how recent that was when I first looked into it.

The OT tells the bullshit tale about how the entire population of the northern kingdom was deported ( Sargon II of Assyria himself only records some 20,000+ people moved) but the other side of the coin is that the Assyrians moved others in. Those brought with them whatever religion they had from elsewhere in the Assyrian empire.

It was not until the very end of the second century that King Alexander Jannaeus conquered Galilee ( c 101 BC) and forcibly converted the inhabitants to Judaism...including circumcision! However, a mere 38 years later the region was "liberated" when Gnaeus Pompey overran the Hasmonean kingdom. One does wonder how deeply a forced religious conversion could have taken root in a such a short period of time, huh?
The Galileans had spent the preceding 250 years under Hellensitic rule either from Seleucia or Alexandria. One imagines that Greek thought was far more deeply ingrained than jewish horseshit especially when brought at the point of a sword.

As with so much else, I think the xtians are full of shit.
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#10
RE: Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
Quote:"The Septuagint is the original Old Testament" REALLY??


So it seems. Certainly there is no older hebrew version of the story in existence. But, as Mouse says, kindly present actual evidence of an older hebrew version of this jewish bullshit story.

Don't expect us to wait. Better minds than yours have already failed to do so.
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